Word: wiseguy
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...early '80s, Chandler had taken over, and the speaker was in on the joke. "Now everyone does shtick, so you see this wiseguy attitude. They're giving you their philosophy through humor," says Mankoff. In a 2002 cartoon by Bruce Eric Kaplan, who wrote for Seinfeld, a wife exiting a movie theater says to her husband, "I liked it except for you." Says Mankoff: "It's a Seinfeld line. That person realizes she is funny." Jokes today are also less visual and far more newsy than they were 40 years ago, when cartoonists could not expect news events to enter...
...early '80s, Chandler had taken over, and the speaker was in on the joke. "Now everyone does shtick, so you see this wiseguy attitude. They're giving you their philosophy through humor," says Mankoff. In a 2002 cartoon by Bruce Eric Kaplan, who wrote for Seinfeld, a wife exiting a movie theater says to her husband, "I liked it except for you." Says Mankoff: "It's a Seinfeld line. That person realizes she is funny." Jokes today are also less visual and far more newsy than they were 40 years ago, when cartoonists could not expect news events to enter...
...pick into someone's neck (tape the handle to avoid fingerprints) or the supplies needed for going to war with another crime family (bring big pots for marinara sauce to feed everyone at the safe house). Now two breezy new gangland guides, Donnie Brasco's The Way of the Wiseguy (Running Press; 224 pages) and Henry Hill's forthcoming Gangsters and GoodFellas (M. Evans & Co.; 273 pages), break the code of omerta even further...
Brasco's account is a how-to manual for made men, with chapters such as "How Wiseguys Take Over a Business" (start violent fights in a bar, then press the owner for "insurance protection") and "Wiseguy Table Manners" (tough guys order before the ladies). Given the colorful subject matter, his writing at times seems a bit dry, even formal. (Maybe that's because Pistone was in law enforcement, used to filling out just-the-facts-ma'am crime reports.) Still, the skinny here is often sensational, and reading the section about how to carry out a hit will almost make...
...planted a microphone in the ceiling at J&S. "It lasted maybe 12, 24 hours, then it went quiet," the ex-agent recalls. "Joey repeatedly swept the place. We knew we were compromised." Colgan's boss wanted the pricey piece of equipment back. So when Colgan spotted a wiseguy entering the social club, he coattailed himself inside. The wiseguy took a swing at him, and several other men rushed him. "The next thing, I hear, I don't see, 'Relax, everybody. It's only Pat.' And it's Joey. He says, 'I figured you'd be back.' He walked into...